Fairy Tail - Eyes of Ice

Chapter 63 - Avatar Pt. 1

ONE YEAR LATER

Winds whistled through Malba City, a once beautiful little place teeming with life that'd henceforth been exiled...temporarily. All of the citizens were heavily advised, with backing from the Magic Council, to get out of there as fast as they could, for fear of the league of cultists coming to invade.

The wide open countryside lay before it, though at the other end rested a mangled forest hiding dark secrets and even darker forces. The sun shone brightly over the land, caressing the countryside and houses with its inescapable light.

The gentle silence did well to ease any tension in the area. But the brewing confidence of the only two who populated Malba City did well to give the city still some modicum of life.

The little cat padded up and down the roof, watching out toward the horizon and the forest for the incoming forces. The swordsman stood stout, gazing long out upon the soon-to-be-battlefield.

"Thought you'd be more excited, not nervous," Kai said. He brushed his hair out of his face and adjusted his sword.

Iggy waggled her tail. "I am excited, but I just have so much pent-up energy that I don't know what to do with it."

"Think it'll be, what, another hour or so?"

"Yeah, exactly, so why am I so jittery when I've waited decades for this moment?"

Kai reached down and patted Iggy's head. He may never get to do that again. She paused and sighed.

"I hope you remember how to use your fingers," Kai said. "And toes."

"That's such a weird thing."

"But valid, no?"

Iggy rolled her eyes and pushed Kai's hand away. He chuckled and stood straight while Iggy once more glanced out at the field.

At any moment, according to Erza, thousands of cultists from the Dark Guild Avatar would come streaming out into the city, after being forced out by none other than Natsu, Lucy, Gray, and Happy.

Typical, Kai thought.

They'd already locked down Avatar's location thanks to Gray's infiltration of their group in his attempts to destroy Zeref. It yielded him fewer results than getting into their high council.

And close to Alok, who Gray was able to feed information back to Kai about//; the man had the ability to create powerful magic barriers about him, making it almost impossible to lay a hand on him. Kai didn't worry too much about that, but was glad to know, at least, that he may have to apply some extra force when fighting him.

Everyone else he didn't really care about. Erza was in the perimeter, too, and Gray knew enough about the others to handle them on his own.

The really intriguing part of all this was going to be seeing what Natsu and Lucy could do.

According to Lucy, Natsu and Happy went off just before Fairy Tail's disbandment and were training, just like Kai, Iggy, and Erza. Kai had to imagine that Lucy wasn't just sitting on her hands, either.

Well, no, she wasn't, as she'd become an ace reporter and writer for Sorcerer's Weekly. Kai, Iggy, and Erza always found a newsstand every week to see what Lucy was writing about, and had it not been for this operation, would've gone to the Grand Magic Games to meet up with her for coverage of that. But apparently, Natsu got that memo instead and trounced the number-one guild all on his own.

Kai brushed more hair out of his face. It'd grown quite a bit since their Avatar research and mission had begun, and he rather liked it: now part of it was up in a small ponytail while some bangs descended the side of his face. He replaced his old hoodie with a very similar one, and Erza taught him a Requip spell to be able to summon his sword so he didn't need the scabbard for it, and people wouldn't see him having a weapon.